title: The impact of calibration phantom errors on dual-energy digital mammography.
abstract: Microcalcification is one of the earliest and main indicators of breast cancer. Because dual-energy digital mammography could suppress the contrast between the adipose and glandular tissues of the breast, it is considered a promising technique that will improve the detection of microcalcification. In dual-energy digital mammography, the imaged object is a human breast, while in calibration measurements only the phantoms of breast tissue equivalent materials are available. Consequently, the differences between phantoms and breast tissues will lead to calibration phantom errors. Based on the dual-energy imaging model, formulae of calibration phantom errors are derived in this paper. Then, this type of error is quantitatively analyzed using publicly available data and compared with other types of error. The results demonstrate that the calibration phantom error is large and dominant in dual-energy mammography, seriously decreasing calculation precision. Further investigations on the physical meaning of calibration phantom error reveal that the imaged objects with the same glandular ratio have identical calibration phantom error. Finally, an error correction method is proposed based on our findings.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Image Processing & Pattern Recognition, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, People's Republic of China. xqmou@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
authors.forename: Xuanqin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Mou
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Lijun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Hengyong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001940:Breast / Q000737:chemistry; D002138:Calibration; D008327:Mammography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*